488 Canadian Record of Science. 



about to faint, but lie knows also that the disease is a 

 pitched battle fought between the invading germ and 

 the white blood-cell of the patient, and this all-import- 

 ant fact was iirst discovered by a Russian zoologist, 

 Metschnikoff, who observed the fight going on under 

 his own eyes in the body of a transparent water flea. 



I shall not weary you by giving you further 

 examples of the way in which the whole modern 

 science of medicine, as distinct from surgery, rests on 

 a basis of biology ; how at every step it is confronted 

 with biological problems and must ever look to zoology 

 and botany for help in its progress. In a word, 

 biology bears the same relation to medicine and to 

 agriculture as mathematics and mechanics do to 

 engineering. 



Turning now from the general utility of the study 

 of ISTatural History to the special value of a society 

 such as ours, I may remark that a ISTatural History 

 society has two functions, a general and a special. 

 The general lies in the encouragement of the study of 

 ISTature, which it gives through the opportunities it 

 affords of allomng naturalists to meet one another and 

 to keep alive the sacred fire of enthusiasm in each 

 other's breasts, and in the enlightenment which it 

 spreads by public lectures, and other means. 



This is an important duty, for if even an elemen- 

 tary knowledge of natural history were more widely 

 diffused we should be freed from much dense ignor- 

 ance on subjects affecting our welfare. Two of these 

 have come under my own notice, and t\\ej will show 

 what ignorance will lead to. An evening paper in this 

 city published diagrams of a number of " microbes " 

 found in the Montreal reservoir as a proof of the 

 horrid condition of the water. ISTow, I do not deny 



